We had a great day entering a float in the Washington Town and Country Fair Parade. I have never been in charge of a float in a parade before. It was a lot of fun and we made contact with a ton of people. Literally thousands of people come out to watch this parade.

We went with a baseball theme because the Fair them this summer is like a baseball theme. Next year our float will be better without any more expense. There is a learning curve to good float building. We will need a lot more candy to hand out next year. We gave out half a shopping cart of candy in seven blocks!

I was totally exhausted on Monday so I took the day off. We were up till 1:30 Friday night with the float and back at it Saturday morning. Church was great Sunday, people entered into worship in great ways! Both morning services were very refreshing.

I took the kids fishing Monday night. Charles caught four. The kids and I caught zero. But, they liked watching Charles clean the fish. We had six people in Charles' canoe! We all stayed dry!

Talk to ya' tomorrow.

Burger Kings and Queens

This weeks Mother's Monday is just for fun.

The Bible says we are a royal priesthood. I thought about that on July fourth as we ate at the new Burger King in town. I had just preached a message on Father's Day about mighty Kings and noble queens, so the thought was on my mind. We are privileged to raise kids who have amazing leadership potential.

I found myself realizing a life-long dream Sunday as all three of my kids helped my with the float project and had fun being with dad and God's people. It is so cool to do ministry with my little kids.

Great Compassion

Yesterday I read in my devotions Matthew 14:14. Jesus was sad because he just learned of John the baptists beheading. I think it was at a time like this he began to feel the weight of his purpose and the beginning of the agony that culminated in the garden, where he literally prayed with blood, sweat and tears!

In his pain he withdrew to another location to be alone, but the crowds followed him and found him. Verse 14 says that when Jesus saw the crowd "he had compassion on them and healed their sick."

Most of the time we assume that God answers our prayers because our faith is just right, or we have earned his favor through behavior or relationship with him. We think that it must be some amazing moment where all the spiritual situations line up just right for a moment so that we can experience a miracle.

What if, we just don't understand how compassionate God is? Maybe he is not so concerned about us having all of our ducks in a perfect row. Maybe he is in agony and pain because of our lack of passion for him. He is weeping for the lost, bleeding for our sins, sweating for his Church and praying for you and me. But for all the pain we cause him, he has compassion on us. Maybe we have received miracles in the past not because we are so great and full of faith, but because his compassion is so great.

Call out to Jesus right now. He is still the same! He still has compassion for you.

Mother's Monday

Here is a neat little piece of information I learned last week. If you are a worker at Kids Camp you can take your seven year old child with you. The normal age cut off is eight.

I hope that when my boys are a few years older we will be going to camp as a family. I met three entire families at camp last week. When my boys hit camp age we will likely have 20-25 kids going at one time. We had fifteen todlers in Jungle Jam Sunday, and that was just the second service!

So, if you are a parent and want to help at camp let's go! If you have camp age kids and then a teen also the teen can go as a teen worker! There were likely 30 or 40 teen workers at camp last week. They can serve as assistant counselors, rec. staff, and various other ministry staff.

have a great day

The Fourth Day of Camp

Today was the mostest, funnest, awesomest day of camp.

Here are a few pics and a video. I will post the other blobing video next week.

Tonight another couple of folks drove down for the service. I love to see people from our church at camp! It is so good for us as a church to get exposed to something different and exciting. It is also good to be at a camp service of any kind (Men's, Women's Retreat, Youth Senior or Kids Camps).

We heard a great message from Isaiah 6:8 where Isaiah proclaimed to God that he would, "go for Him," and be the messenger God needed. Our Kids, and really all of us, were challenged by this message.

It is 12:45 a.m. I gota' go.

The Learning Curve For Prayer

There is a learning curve for prayer. This week I have learned that prayer must be learned by practice, not lessons and talking about it. The only way to learn to pray is practice the thing. Can I say trial and error? I mean really, you have to just start talking to God.

Why am I learning this at kids camp? because at youth camp it seems so natural for everyone to pray and seek God in response to the message they have just heard. But, you have say, 650 youth campers. 550 to 600 of them go to church, and or have been going to kids camp for years and know the general method of praying at the altar. At kids camp it is totally different. Many of the kids have no idea. Kids camp is like revival incubation!

When I get home I am going to have to work on this one a whole lot more. We as parents are going to have to work on this a whole lot more. Our kids need to learn to pray. I have to teach mine, you have to teach yours. Let's teach them by doing it!

Third Day of Camp

The third day of camp was the mostest funnest so far.
The first picture is our girls playing a water game. The secon pic. is our girls cheering for their team. The video is Pastor Paul's wife Stephanie playing a water balloon game.
Here are some higlhlights of the day.
1. We had a great service tonight. We talked about s'mores. We all need s'more of the God's word, prayer and the Holy Spirit in our lives.
2. The girls from our chruch are great at the rock wall!
3. The boys are great at the blob. They are fearless in the face of the danger of excitement.
4. Pastor Paul got a blody nose in the pool when a kid hit him whiel trying to throw a frisbee.
5. Stephanie Jahnke and Ginger came down to visit the service.
Good day, gotta go.

Second Day of Kids Camp

Today was funner than yesterday!

The first picture is a picture of Pastor John's boys that he is counseling. They are totally pumped up for church. The second pic is of Pastor John receiving an outpouring. The message was about the Holy Spirit and His power. God wants to pour out his power into your life to live for him glorify him and witness for him. They illustrated God's outpouring by pouring a whole bottle of water over Pastor John's head, and making him ask for it, and wait for it a long time.

Here are some highlights.
1. The food is great. No hungry kids.
2. The weather is HOT! There are huge ice water containers out all over for kids to get drinks and they are used quickly.
3. Our kids are getting good at the blob. I will try to post some blob video or pics.
4. I had my first "save" as a life guard today. A boy jumped in the deep end without completing the swim test. We have six life guards on duty at one time for boys and six for girls. One of the male guards is also a paramedic. So, we have the bases covered and then covered again.
5. Our kids stayed at the altar and prayed and waited on God. We definitely need to work on teaching our kids to pray. Some of them have no idea how to pray. Not that there are a lot of rules, or some mantra that must be learned to talk to God. Its just that they are uncomfortable praying. They need prayer practice. They need plain old God time. Mom and Dad, pray with your kids. They need to hear your ad-lib prayers. Then let them pray out loud and you listen. Eventually you will hear them become great prayer warriors for God.

Have a great day tomorrow. It is 11:00 p.m. I think I am going to go play some B-Ball with the teen workers now.

First Day of Kids Camp

Today was fun!

My wife rode in the van with Pastor John and the nine kids from our church. We stopped in at MickyD's for a snack and ended up stopping in Eldon, MO to give the van an unexpected but needed drink of water! Our award winning resident Ford Service Manager says we will be OK, just need to watch for the motor getting too hot and then test a thermostat when we get back.

The kids love camp already. Little Stephanie said, "This is so cool!!" and we were only unloading the luggage out of the van. Service was good, camp has a pirate theme and they talked about growing this week in God. A lot of kids came forward to be saved. John and I prayed with the boys and Stephanie with the girls. After service the kids could buy little light up toys or go to the snack shop, or just hang out till the weird siren known as "the whooper" sounds telling the kids to go back to their rooms and get to bed. (The Whooper is named for the unusual sound it makes, WOOP - WOOP and so no.)

I have not been to kids camp before. I have been to tons of youth camps all over the nation. This is really different. I was in my room and ready for bed at 10:15 p.m. What is going on here? At youth camp you never sleep before 1:00 a.m. even though lights out is 12:00 midnight.

Today is my wife's b-day. It was fun to play with. As my wife gets older she still continues to look young. I have a very funny story about this, but will need her permission to put it on the blog.

Got to go. need my sleep to wake up early, read, pray, and do my waterfront duty tomorrow. I start at 9:30 a.m. and finish at 5:20 p.m. I bought some spray sunscreen because I will have to apply it so many times each day. If the newest urban legend about spray sun screen being flammable is true please send me a comment and let me know. The goal is, not to burn.

Wild Week - Blogging out for a while

Tomorrow I will be headed to Indiana for a wedding. I will return for Sunday and leave again on Monday for a week. I will likely miss some days this week on the blog.

I am very excited about the message for Sunday. Since it is Summer I am focusing the sermons on the faithful core of the church. In the Summer, first time visitors are general fewer in number. This weeks message in the "Sizzling Summer Hot Topics" series is, "The Melting Polar Ice Cap."

The church in the United States has been frozen in time for too long! But, there is a sea change occurring. There is a climate change, global in nature, that can affect the U.S. churches. In the next two messages we will be looking at what we need to learn from thriving Christian communities in other parts of the world. This week we look at the difficulty that the U.S. church has in breaking out of some cultural barriers that keep us from completing God's mission on the earth. The Church has been frozen in time, but the ice is melting and we will soon be on the move again, perhaps like we have never seen before!

Exploration Day

Today was a day of exploration. We are looking for more people to reach for Jesus. We are looking for carpet to put in the nursery. We are looking for coffee house equipment to put in the kitchen. We are looking for God to provide our financial needs.

What are you exploring for the Lord? Who are you chasing for the Lord? Go make a friend who needs more of Jesus. Go make a friend who need a church home and get em'!

I challenge you do some exploring with me!

The rest of Mother's Monday

Explaining the last post.

In college I took a friend to a funeral of a person they did not even know. I had no idea that they had never been to a funeral in their life! At the end they were sobbing like crazy. They had not learned to deal with the reality of death.

You gotta learn some time, and it is best to learn from mom, dad and close family. When I have taken my young boys to funerals they always come out with great questions about life. Funerals create great teachable moments for kids and families. Be careful which funerals you take them to. Some may create more messes than opportunities.

Here is my promised top ten worst things I have experienced at funerals. The first few are musical miss-judgements. The others are ceremonial mishaps and family messes.
10. Closing funeral for young drug OD victim with Guns and Roses "Knockin' on Heavens Door."
9. Closing funeral service with Jerry Lee Lewis', "Great Balls of Fire."
8. Playing "Prop Me Up Beside the Jukebox When I Die."
7. The funeral director closes the casket and begins to lock the lid shut with a crank that fits in the end of the lid. That thing needed some oil bad! It made the worst noises and he just kept working on it.
6. The minister steps onto the green turf carpet covering the edges of the grave and falls in up to his knee. I also know another minister who fell in the grave.
5. A pall bearer lifted on his assigned handle and it broke off.
4. I have been to a funeral where a pall bearer was drunk.
3. I performed a funeral where two grandchildren were asked to sing the theme to Titanic. It has a very long introduction. When they started they found they had the tape on the wrong side. They stopped, flipped the tape over, but then had to wait while it was rewound all the way and then we listened to the long introduction again.
2. I went to a funeral where a man was buried with a beer can in his hand.
1. Attending a funeral at a large funeral home with several chapels is not always easy. I didn't know the family, only the deceased. I stood in line for a long time, got to the casket and realized I had been standing in the wrong line!

Here is the bottom line about funerals. A person's funeral reflects a person's life. Live a wild life, you will have a wild and unusual funeral. Do you stress your family out? Then your funeral will be stressful. Do your friends wonder if you will go to Heaven? Then your funeral service will be tense.

Live your life so that the pastor will not have to lie at your funeral to comfort your family!!!

Mother's Monday

Today's parenting message is simple, and for some a bit drastic. Here is my advice. Get your kids used to going to funerals when they are young. I will elaborate tomorrow.

New Web Sermons

Hey friends! I have just posted the last four weeks of messages on the First AG web site. The Father's Day message will be repaired shortly. Again, we can not figure out how to get the audio player to work right and so you need to click on the down arrow to the right of the title to listen to the message. It will come up in a new window and you will be able to listen to it in Quick-time or Windows Media Player.

Well, I got the title bar to work on this computer. Perhaps it only is failing on my laptop?

Spiritual Deserts

Today I want to post the notes from Sunday.

"Spiritual Deserts: How do we survive and thrive in spiritual drought?"

Many great spiritual heroes went through times of wandering in dry places.
--Abraham fled famine two times, spiritual tests he failed.
--Joseph passed through the desert on his way to Egypt.
--Moses spent 40 years in the desert before leading the people out of Egypt.
--Joshua wandered in the desert for 40 years, before he led Israel.
--David spent years in the wilderness fleeing from Saul.
--Elijah went through a drought during God’s judgment.
--Jonah’s vine dried up so God could show him his hateful heart.
--John the Baptist lived in the desert and ministered in the desert.
--Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by Satan.
--Paul spent three years in the desert learning from the Lord before he started missionary work.

The greatest example of spiritual desert survival tactics is found in the story of the Israelites crossing the desert on the way to their promised land. How did God’s people survive the desert and go on to thrive in a new home?

1. Remember God’s Promises.
The desert is not your final destination.
Exodus 3:17 - And I have promised to bring you up out of your misery in Egypt into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—a land flowing with milk and honey.
2. Recognize God’s Plan.
There are lessons to learn in your desert.
Deuteronomy 4:10 - Remember the day you stood before the LORD your God at Horeb, when he said to me, “Assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to revere me as long as they live in the land and may teach them to their children.”
3. Rely on God’s Power.
God will guide you through the desert.
Exodus 19:4 - ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself
4. Refuel in God’s Presence.
Find an oasis in the desert.
Exodus 15:27 - Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs and seventy palm trees, and they camped there near the water.
5. Realize God’s Purposes.
You have a calling, having crossed the desert.
Leviticus 26:12-13 - I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt…”

The last two posts do not have titles because I can not get the title box in blogger to respond at all. If you are a blogger user and have a suggestion let me know.

Sunday Summary

Today has been quite a day. The message for today about Spiritual Deserts kicked off our Sizzling Summer Hot Topics Series. This message is both timely and timeless. I will post the notes tomorrow.

After church I headed home to change out of comfortable church clothing into funeral type clothing. Then I attended a 1:00 funeral and dinner and went back to the funeral home for the next visitation. I think I will make a top ten list of things I don't want at my funeral. All things which I have actually encountered at other funerals. Remind me in a few days. I guess I will need to follow that with a list of good funeral experiences too.

Please keep the folks in our church in prayer this week. Weeks with multiple funerals in a church effect more people than you think. Often we don't realize all the relational connections in our church.

I have just put the finishing touches on the funeral service for tomorrow. My family is in St. Louis taking my sister-in-law who stayed with us this weekend back to the airport. I am going to run a few miles, clan up the yard, hang with the kids and put them to bed. God is good.

Father's Friday

This Friday I simply want to introduce you to CPYU. The Center for Youth Parent Understanding is a place to get tons of information about youth culture. If you are raising a teen this is a great place to learn. You can also subscribe to an e-mail update from them.

The older I get the more aware I am of the "divergent realities" of various generations. i have not read this entire book but the basic premise seems true. We often have no clue what people of another generation are thinking and feeling while we experience the same current event.

No Guarentee

There are a lot of things in life that are guaranteed. Products are guaranteed to work for a certain period of time. Satisfaction is guaranteed, though I have never figured out how one person can guarantee the feelings of another. Rates are guaranteed and so on.

One thing is not guaranteed. We are not promised tomorrow or another day of life. Lately I have been dealing with a lot of deaths. A family member. A member of the the church. Church member's family members. Some are older folks, but some are young!

James says that we go about life planning for the future, but really we ought to make our plans and then say, "if the Lord wills, we will do this or that" (James 4:15).

We don't know when the Lord will call us to himself in death. We do know that the Lord loves every person unconditionally. We also know the Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. We know he is in control. When we have to face death in our family and among our friends we have to hang on to what we know, even when all our feelings scream other more painful things.

My encouragement to you is to follow these words found on a tombstone, quoted Pastor John Osteen many times before he went to be with the Lord.
"Pardon stranger passing by,
as you are now so once was I.
As I am now soon you will be,
prepare thyself to follow me."

The minister found a piece of chalk rock and added these lines.
"To follow you I'm not content,
until I know which way you went."

"Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come." Ecclesiastes 12:1

Happy July 4th

I have a friend who just graduated from SMU with a Master of Arts in History. He sent me these great quotes from some of our founding fathers.

Patrick Henry
1. "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased a the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
2. "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here."
3. "The Bible is worth all other books which have ever been printed."
4. "Bad men cannot make good citizens. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience are incompatible with freedom."
5, "It is when people forget God that tyrants forge their chains."

James Madison
1. "It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage....Before any man can be considered as a member of Civil Society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governor of the Universe."
2. "We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God."

Fisher Ames
(Author of the First Amendment)
"Should not the Bible regain the place it once held as a schoolbook? Its morals are pure, its examples are captivating and noble..."

Those who fought the revolutionary war and founded our nation were not perfect. They were not living in a vacuum free from the concerns of finances. They were individuals who assumed that the freedom they achieved would be exercised within the moral responsibility to God described in the Bible.

Hygge already

It was so great this weekend to see people sitting in the future location of Elishama's visiting and experiencing Hygge. More furniture is on the way and plans are underway to decorate and begin serving coffee.

Mother's Monday

For today's Mother's Monday I want to make a suggestion to any woman who has a husband who likes books, but needs lots of pictures. For Father's Day my mom got me the book "Why a Son Needs A Dad," by Gregory E. Lang. It is a great photo book that is great for a coffee table and has lots of great pictures and very short statements that inspire dads. If you click on the highlighted link you will go to Amazon.com. There you will find several other books by Lang that are also intriguing.